Rasphuis
Rasphuis was a penitentiary in Amsterdam that was founded in 1595 in the former Poor Clare monastery on Heiligeweg. It was abandoned in 1815 and the building was demolished in 1892.
The secretes tuchthuis was later attached, to which , in the opinion of the parents, difficult-to- educate children were sent. The breeding and correction house for women was the Spinhuis (spinning company) , which opened in 1597 .
history
After 16-year-old Evert Jansz confessed to stealing from his boss after being tortured by the executioner, it was decided on June 19, 1589, based on the ideas of Cornelis Pietersz Hooft and Dirck Volkertszoon Coornhert , to found the prison. The Rasphuis, which was one of the first European penitentiaries, was primarily intended for beggars and young petty criminals. Life in prison was shaped by three basic rules:
- To a certain extent, the administration was able to directly influence the length of the inmates' stay. Good behavior could reduce the term of imprisonment; bad behavior could increase it. This assessment period could already be defined in the judgment.
- The inmates were obliged to work, which was done collectively. For this work done by the inmates, they were paid, depending on their workload.
- There was a daily routine that was regulated to the minute.
One cell could accommodate up to twelve prisoners, and two or three people slept in one bed. Detention in a solitary cell was only used as an additional punishment.
For a time it was the most famous house in Holland: Its residents, convicted delinquents, were drawn in for light work and could be viewed by anyone at almost any time. It got its name from the Brazilian redwood that the inmates had to saw ("rasps") for further processing. The Brazilian obtained was used to dye textiles. For those who did not want to work, there was a basement room that could be flooded. The prisoner had a hand pump and with it the choice to pump or drown.
Although the Rasphuis had had the privilege of rasping hardwood since 1602, contrary to contemporary literature, which emphasized the particular economy of the penitentiary, the income could not cover the costs. Attempts were made - through strict surveillance, spiritual pastoral care and a system of prohibitions and obligations - to educate the prisoners to lead a good life. The French philosopher Michel Foucault recognized the abuse of the body for the purpose of restraining the mind as a totalitarian controlling apparatus.
A permanent view from the outside generated a completely new form of entertainment, which also immediately provoked criticism across Europe: One complained that the poor people were "displayed like animals". Behind this was a moral concept that came partly from humanism , partly from Calvinism : Shame should be the first path to improvement.
The Rasphuis formed the basis for the other breeding establishments established at that time, which further developed these principles. At the beginning of the 17th century, the idea of penitentiaries spread across Germany via the north German Hanseatic cities .
In Ghent in 1775 a prison was also founded, had to grate Redwood where prisoners. This was therefore also popularly called Rasphuis.
literature
- Thorsten Sellin : Pioneering in penology: the Amsterdam houses of correction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , Michigan 1944.
- Michel Foucault : Monitoring and Punishing. The Birth of Prison , 13th edition 1993, Frankfurt am Main, p. 155.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Uwe Wesel : History of the law: From the early forms to the present. CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-406-54716-4 . No. 260.
- ^ Klaus Dörner : Citizens and Irre. On the social history and sociology of science in psychiatry. 2nd Edition. Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 21.